This time, General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz is definitely having no second thoughts. After temporarily holding off his retirement plans last year to lead GM’s marketing department and act as a senior advisor to GM chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, Lutz has officially called it a day.
According to CNBC, the larger-than-life Lutz will officially retire from General Motors effective May 1st.
The man a lot of people refer to as ‘Maximum Bob’ for his boisterous personality is also widely regarded as one of the principal figures responsible for jump-starting the company’s product development after it became a little too stale back in the early part of the millennium.
General Motors has apparently gotten used to the age old adage, “if there’s no drama, then it isn’t worth the price of admission”.
We’re telling you this because, as it turns out, Hummer, which was on the brink of the guillotine after GM’s impending sale of the brand to Tengzhong fell through, may just have found new life.
According to the Wall Street Journal, two prior bidders for Hummer have stepped up to the plate in the hopes of saving the All-American SUV from the dust bin. The Wall Street Journal didn’t go on record as to say which two suitors have renewed their chase for Hummer, but it sure is worth pointing that this whole situation is eerily reminiscent of the whole General Motors-Saab-Spyker soap opera, which by the way, wasn’t made official until early this week.
Whether or not these two supposed ‘old’ suitors of Hummer have anything to offer to GM to make them consider selling it, it sure is going to be a very interesting few weeks for all the parties involved. But at the end of the day, Hummer has only two places to go. Either it follows Saab to salvation or it goes follows the bread crumbs left behind by the recently-deceased Saturn and Pontiac.
Keep it here and we’ll update you as soon as more information becomes available.
General Motors had a hard time unloading Saab off of its hands until Spyker eventually came to its rescue. Now it looks like GM is facing a little case of déjà vu after reports that Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, the company that has been linked – for the longest time – as the would-be buyer of Hummer, is apparently getting cold feet.
According to Reuters, the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, the two governing bodies that would have to approve the sale of Hummer to Tengzhong is questioning the rationality of buying a brand that’s not necessarily famous for fuel-efficiency, in light of the fact that the country is now taking steps to become more eco-friendly. Guess nobody saw that coming, huh?
If you’re looking for a measuring stick in terms of producing some of the most provocative and compelling documentaries in television today, you can’t go wrong with HBO, especially after their latest creation, “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Documentary Short category.
Recounting the story of the abrupt closing of General Motors’ Moraine Assembly Plant, ‘The Last Truck’ takes viewers into a first-hand look on the effects the shutting down of the plant had on the workers and, to a greater extent, the entire community. After having promised that the plant would not shut down until after a few years, GM’s quick about-face – the company decided to shut down the plant last Dec. 23 - on the matter shocked the community and the employees, many of whom were given enough time to continue their jobs while also looking for better opportunities elsewhere.
If there’s one documentary that we’re going to urge you to watch, it’s this one. Not only does it paint a unique portrait on the lasting effects of the global financial crisis and all of its ramifications, but it also touches on the stories of all those people that thought they were given enough time to sort their jobs and priorities together, only to see the rug get pulled from them unexpectedly.
By now, a lot of us have probably been hammered with lectures and tutorials about the idea of electric cars and how it’s going to revolutionize the auto industry in the future.
One of the most visible proponents of electric cars has been General Motors and with the Chevrolet Volt, the auto conglomerate has the ideal car to show everyone the merits of EV driving without compensating for performance and reliability.
But for every one of us that know about electric cars like the back of our hands, there are probably hundreds – maybe thousands – that still can’t tell the difference between standard vehicles and those that run on electricity.
So, in a PSA round-about way, GM decided to release a video showing exactly how the Chevy Volt works. Don’t worry; if you’re watching this for the first time, it’s not as complicated as it looks. GM did a smart thing in keeping it simple. After all, you can’t teach someone new tricks without having to explain it in as easy a way as possible first.
